The Value Premium on the Danish Stock Market : 1950-2004

A number of influential studies have documented a considerable value premium for US stocks over long time periods (Fama and French (1992, 2008), Lakonishok et al. (1994)). Stocks with low price-earnings multiples, price-book values and other measures of value are reported to have given a higher mean return than stocks with high multiples and high asset growth (Cooper et al. (2008)). Outside the US, the evidence is more uncertain due to data shortages. On the basis of a unique data set that extends over more than half a century, this paper not only shows that there is a value premium in the Danish market but also that growth stocks only produce high earnings growth in the run-up to portfolio formation. Growth stocks are therefore likely to have disappointed investors. We therefore also estimate the proportion of the premium that can be explained by growth stocks’ earnings disappointment.